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They didn't seem to be on the right track, but that could have easily changed.

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No they were not on the right track, but they had "included network connectivity to larger more powerful computers". In the 70's we already had the cloud, why 40 years later would we be considering going back to it? Did we miss something?

It's not that we are comparing a lightweight netbook os to a full fledged os. We are saying a cloud based os, on any power of local computing equipment is not feasible in todays available connectivity or bandwidth. A cloud based os would be essentially 100% dependent on bandwidth because all software would be run from a remote server. Not to mention all personal data would also be stored on a remote server giving third parties access to our data. Believe me this is not what you want.

Let me add, imagine you are traveling on business and you need to edit, let's say a spreadsheet for your company. In today's computer os you would open a local program (Microsoft Excel, or Open Office Calc.) Whatever program you use. Then upload the finished document to your companies server. Minimal bandwidth is used in this process. How well do you think this would work if say a few hundred thousand people were trying to connect to a remote hosted spreadsheet editing program at the same time? This process would slow to a crawl on todays available bandwidth (if you were even able to complete it) and finding sufficient Internet access to connect in the first place? Good luck most places I have been, current infrastructure is most certainly not ready and I doubt if it will be any time soon.

Windows Azure: The Cloud Is InevitableThe 'Cloud" is nearer than some of us may think it is. It seems that Microsoft and Google are going to be pushing this style of computing onto the public.
Here is an article that is worth reading if you are thinking about joining a "Cloud Computing" network.
I think that those who have been...